There are seven conditions under which one is unable to find water or, even if he can find it, he cannot use it to make an ablution or ghusl:

1. He who is one mile away from a source of water makes a tayammum, provided he should make the proper intentions. One mile is equal to four thousand zra', which equals 1920 meters. It is always fard to look for water when you are in a city.
2. A sick person can make a tayammum if it is understood that having an ablution, ghusl or moving will worsen the sickness and delay the healing, either from his own experience or from the words of a specialized Muslim doctor who does not commit sins openly.
3. If a person is too ill to make a ghusl or ablution or cannot find anybody to help him even for money, he will make a tayammum. He who cannot make a tayammum even with help does not perform the namaz, but he performs it when he recovers. It is not wajib for a husband and wife to help each other to make an ablution.
4. If there is the danger that a person may die or get sick because of cold when he makes a ghusl, if he does not have enough money to go to a bath and has no other alternative, even if he is in a city, he makes a tayammum instead of a ghusl and makes an ablution with water.
5. If water is close but there is an enemy, a wild or poisonous animal, a fire or a guard near the water, or if he is imprisoned, or if someone threatens him with death or takes away his possessions if he makes an ablution, he makes a tayammum instead and performs the namaz. But since these are caused by creatures, he has to perform his namaz again after he makes a ghusl and ablution.
6. If a traveler has extra water which he and his comrades need to drink, to clean themselves of najasat or to give to their animals, he makes a tayammum. If he makes a ghusl with the water and performs the namaz with najasat on his clothes it will be accepted, but he will be sinful. If he first makes a tayammum and them removes the najasat, he will have to make a tayammum again. For one cannot make tayammum while there is water. If a person who is junub finds water enough to wash his body partly or to make an ablution, he makes one tayammum for ablution and ghusl. If his ablution breaks after the tayammum, he makes an ablution with the water. When the water poured on the body in ablution and ghusl falls down somewhere [not on one's clothes], it becomes foul and one cannot drink it. But it can be given to animals to drink. A person who is about to die from thirst buys water from someone who has extra water. If the latter will not sell it, the former takes it by force, by fighting or threatening. Water to be used for ablution cannot be taken by force.
7. If a person cannot find a bucket or a rope to lift water out of a well, or a person to go down a well for money, he makes a tayammum, and does not have to perform his namaz again when he finds water.

   In case one makes a tayammum for one of the reasons written above, the tayammum expires when the reason ceases to exist. If another reason arises before the first reason ceases to exist, and then the first reason ceases to exist, the first tayammum again expires. One has to make a tayammum again.

   A person without an ablution or ghusl can make a tayammum even when there is water lest he will miss the prayer of Bayram ('Iyd) or janaza. If there is the fear that he may miss Friday prayer or any of the five daily prayers, he cannot make a tayammum when there is water. Ghusl or ablution is necessary. If the time of prayer is over he performs it later. For example, a person who wakes up and sees that he is junub when the sunrise is close at hand makes a ghusl hastily. If the sun rises, he performs his morning prayer together with its sunnat half an hour later.

 Tayammum means to intend.

1.  1 - To intend to purify oneself of janabat or from the state of being without an ablution. If a person without an ablution makes a tayammum in order to teach his disciple, he cannot perform namaz with it.

Intending for tayammum only is not enough for performing the namaz with the tayammum. It is also necessary to intend to do something which is an ibadat (worship), for example, to intend to make a tayammum in order to perform janaza namaz, to make sajda-i tilawat, or to intend only to make a tayammum instead of an ablution or a ghusl.

When intending for a tayammum it is not necessary to separate ablution and ghusl from each other. By intending for an ablution, one becomes purified from janabat, too. One can perform namaz with the tayammum one has made in order to be purified from janabat. A second tayammum for an ablution is unnecessary.

2. Both sleeves should be rolled up to above the elbows and the two palms should be rubbed on clean soil, stone or on a wall plastered with lime. Then one must make masah on the face with both palms once, that is, rub them on the face gently with at least three fingers touching the face. If any part of the face or arms as large as the point of a pin is left untouched by the hands, the tayammum will not be sahih.

[To make a perfect masah on the face, the two open-hand palms, with four fingers of each hand closed together and with the two long fingers of both hands touching each other, are put on the forehead, the fingers on the hairline, and moved slowly down towards the chin. The fingers, in a level line, must be rubbed on the forehead, on the eye-lids, on both sides of the nose, on the lips, and on the facial part of the chin. Meanwhile the palms will be rubbed on the cheeks.]

3. After putting both hands on the soil for a second time and clapping the hands so as to shake the excessive dust and soil off, first rub the inner parts of the four fingers of the left hand on the outer face of the right arm from the tip of the fingers to the elbow, then rub the left palm on the inner face of the right arm from the elbow down to the palm, and then rub the inner part of the left thumb on the outer part of the right thumb. All rings must be removed, and masah must be made on the sides of the fingers of each hand with the fingers of the other hand. Then rub the right hand likewise on the left arm. The palms must be rubbed on the soil, but the dust and soil need not be left on the hands.

 A Tayammum has twelve sunnats:

1. To put the palms on the soil.
2. To move the palms back and forth on the soil.
3. If there is soil left on the palms, to clap the hands together with the thumbs until there is no soil left.
4. To open the fingers while putting the hands on the soil.
5. To start in the Basmala (in the name of Allahu ta'ala).
6. To make masah first on the face, then on the arms.
7. To perform in the quick manner of an ablution.
8. If a traveler (musafir) knows that there is water within a mile, it is fard for him to look for it; if he is only estimating, it is sunnat.
9. To make masah first on the right, then on the left arm.
10. To put the hands on the soil strongly as if hitting.
11. To make masah on the arms as described above.
12. To make masah between the fingers.

   Things that burn and turn into ashes or that can be melted by heat are not earthen. Therefore, tayammum cannot be made with trees, grass, wood, iron, brass, painted walls, copper, gold or glass. It can be made with sand. It cannot be made with pearls or corals. It can be made with lime, plaster of Paris, washed marble, cement, faience that is not glazed, porcelain, earthenware pans, or mud. If there is mud only, tayammum can be made with it, if the water in it is less than fifty percent. If the water is more than fifty percent, a piece of cloth must be soaked with it, dried against the wind, and then tayammum can be made with the dusty cloth. Tayammum cannot be made with muddy water. But an ablution can be made with it. A tayammum can be made on a wall white washed with lime. When the hands are put on things with which a tayammum is not permissible, such as wheat, tissue, clothes, cushions, or if the hands become dusty with the dust (that comes) from things with which a tayammum is permissible, or with ashes, or if the dust or ashes fly about in the air when the hands are clapped, a tayammum can be made with them. The case is not so with the organic dusts resting on household things. Several people can make a tayammum on the same soil. For soil and the like do not become mustamal when they are used for tayammum. The dust that falls from the hands and face after a tayammum is mustamal.

   When something is the mixture of something that can be used for tayammum and something which cannot, it will be named after the component that is more than half. In the Hanafi Madhhab, it is permissible to make a tayammum before any prayer time and to perform various prayers with one tayammum. In the other three Madhhabs, a tayammum becomes void when the prayer time is over. When a musafir (traveler) strongly believes through its signs or after being informed by a sane, pubescent and just Muslim that he will find water at a distance less than a mile [1920 meters], in Maliki less than two miles, it is fard for him to look for water by walking or sending somebody for one hundred zra' [two hundred meters] in each direction, or if possible, by just looking. If he does not have a strong expectation, he does not have to search for water. If a person who has an honest friend with him makes a tayammum without asking about water and starts to perform the namaz and then is told that there is water, he makes an ablution and performs the namaz again. It is permissible to perform the namaz with a tayammum while water is more than a mile away. A person who forgets that there is water among his provisions can perform the namaz with a tayammum if he is not in a city, a village [or in any inhabited place]. If a person who thinks his water has run out finds that he does have water after the namaz, he performs the namaz again which he performed with a tayammum. Likewise, when a person who performs the namaz without an ablution remembers that he does not have an ablution, he performs the namaz again.

   It is wajib for a musafir to ask for water from others. If they do not give him water, he performs the namaz with a tayammum. If a musafir's friend sells water for its current price, the musafir who has extra money has to buy it. If its owner sells it by Ghaban-i fahish, that is, by extreme cheating, or if the musafir does not have the money to buy it for its current price, he is permitted to perform the namaz with a tayammum. Ghaban-i fahish means more than twice its current market value. The case is the same with a naked person buying some cloth to cover his awrat (private) parts. But a thirsty person is permitted to buy high priced water to drink. In a desert, one must ask for a rope and a bucket from one's comrade. One can make a tayammum while there is water placed on the way especially for drinking. Ibni 'Abidin 'rahmat-ullahi ta'ala 'alaih' writes in the fifth volume: "It is not permissible to make an ablution with the water set aside for drinking. One should make a tayammum."

   If there is a little free [mubah] water, a person who is junub must wash himself before a menstruating woman, a person without an ablution, or a dead Muslim. The owner of the water has precedence over others. When water belonging to different owners is brought together, a dead Muslim must be washed first.

   The way for a hajji [Muslim pilgrim] to avoid using up the zamzam water he has with him for ablution is to change its name from pure water by putting something in it, such as sugar or roses. Or he must give it to a person whom he trusts as a present that cannot be returned. If the person given the present gives a small present in response, the former owner cannot take his present back.

   If a junub person loses his ablution after making a tayammum, he does not he becomes junub in Hanafi but he becomes junub in Maliki Madhhab. If there is little water he makes an ablution only.

   When water more than is needed for drinking, washing najasat, and making bread is found, the tayammum becomes annulled. If one finds it while performing namaz, one's namaz becomes annulled, too. If one passes by the water while sleeping in a vehicle, one's ablution by way of a tayammum becomes annulled because one has slept. If one cannot get off the vehicle to make an ablution though one has been awake, the tayammum does not become annulled.

   If more than half of the surface of a junub person's body has a disease, such as a wound, small-pox or scarlet fever, he makes a tayammum. If major part of his skin is healthy and if it is possible to wash himself without moistening the diseased parts, he makes a ghusl with water and makes masah on the diseased parts. If masah would cause harm, he puts one or several clothes on the diseased parts and makes masah on them. One whose hands are diseased puts his feet and face into water. If he cannot do this he makes a tayammum. A sick person who can get help from someone in order to make an ablution does not make a tayammum. If it is impossible for him to wash without moistening the wounded parts, he makes a tayammum. If more than half of all his limbs of ablution or three or all four of his limbs of ablution are wounded, he makes a tayammum. If a tayammum would cause harm he omits the prayer. If they are equal, he must not make a tayammum. It is not permissible for a person who makes a tayammum to wash some of his limbs. There are thirty-four such things that cannot be done at the same time. Though it was said, "He who has such a headache that he cannot make masah on his head can make a tayammum in place of an ablution, and he who can not wash his head can make a tayammum in place of a ghusl," this word must not be acted upon, because the fatwa which states that they both will lapse has been issued formerly.

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Copyright © 1996 Al Adaab: Living Islam According to the Minhaj of the True Salaf as Salihoon
Last modified: 08/29/06